Mutantpiece Theatre: Timeless Classics
by Karen11
Summary: Logan tells his daughter a bedtime story. Quick note: Jean is alive in this post X2 fic because I always put Scott with someone else and this time I was letting Jean have him. :


Title: Mutantpiece Theatre: Timeless Classics  
  
Author: Karen  
  
E-Mail: kittenrescue@hotmail.com  
  
Disclaimer: Only Charlene Marie is my creation; everyone else belongs to Marvel and Fox.  
  
Archive Rights: Dolphin Haven and Postcards From The Edge  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Summary: Logan tells his daughter a bedtime story.   
  
Author's notes: I shamelessly *borrowed* a brief tidbit from the movie "Jerry Maguire" and also a line from a SNL skit. For those of you who might not know, the following information might be helpful ~ Altoids is a breath mint made in England. Reader's Digest is a magazine known for its condensed stories and its name has become a metaphor for abbreviated storytelling.   
  
Second note: Yes, I know I've used the Kryptonite bit before - call it a classic.   
  
Thanks and air kisses to my preview team of Gina, Alyx and Jonas.  
  
~ Timeless Classics ~  
  
Six-year-old Charlene Marie, affectionately known as Charlie, was bathed, powdered and dressed in her footie pajamas and currently propped up on a mountain of fluffy pillows on the four-poster canopied bed in her pink and white bedroom. Her father Logan was just about to switch off the lamp on the white wicker nightstand, which would leave the room bathed in only the soft glow from the nightlight, when Charlie put her tiny little hand on his arm.  
  
"Tell me a thory, daddy." She'd just lost her two front baby teeth and everything was coming out with a slight lisp.  
  
Stories were usually Marie's department, but tonight she'd been conned into attending a Tupperware party being held in the rec room by overzealous new saleswoman Jubilee. Logan was fairly certain that Marie would come home loaded down with several hundred dollars worth of the plastic ware. Jubilee could sell freezers to Eskimos.   
  
"Daddy doesn't know any stories, sweetpea," he replied.  
  
He couldn't recall any stories that didn't begin with 'one time during this brawl', which is why reading their daughter to sleep was Marie's job.   
  
"Tell me how you met mommy and fell all in love."  
  
"You've heard that one a hundred times already, aren't you bored with it?" Logan asked hopefully, but knowing it was unlikely she'd grow tired of that story anytime in the foreseeable future.  
  
"Mommy thaid ith a clathic."   
  
Logan looked at his daughter who was giving him her version of the Marie-pout, which made him just as weak as when her mother aimed it at him. Everyone jokingly referred to it as Wolverinite - more powerful even than Kryptonite.   
  
"Okay, sweetpea, scoot over," he said motioning for her to shift over to make room for him.   
  
Logan swung his legs onto the twin-size bed and raised his arm so that Charlie could snuggle against him. Once she was comfortably settled, he began her favorite bedtime story.  
  
"Once upon a time there was a grouchy loner who met a beautiful runaway. They found themselves at a mansion filled with geeks. A bad man kidnapped the beautiful runaway and the grouch rescued her. They fell in love and got married. The End."  
  
"Daddy."  
  
"What? It's the Reader's Digest version."   
  
"I want the thory with all the embellyments."  
  
"Huh? Oh, you mean embellishments," Logan said trying to suppress a grin.  
  
"Yeah, that," Charlie replied, "Why did she date Uncle Bobby?"  
  
"Temporary insanity would be my guess."   
  
"Mommy thaid you didn't love her then."  
  
"Charlie, I've always loved your mom. I just didn't tell her right away."  
  
"Why?" Charlie asked simply.  
  
"'Cause at first I was cruising down the river of denial," Logan replied, "And then later I didn't want Uncle Scott having me arrested."   
  
"Oh yeah, I 'member Uncle Thcott thaid you had a tathe for jailbait. Is that like chicken?"  
  
"More like tuna," Logan responded, a naughty wistful look on his face.  
  
Thankfully Charlie didn't understand the rude metaphor and Logan quickly steered things in a new direction.  
  
"How about the story of how I proposed to mommy?" he asked.  
  
The proposal story was her second favorite and Charlie clapped her hands together in delight.   
  
"Aunt Jubes thaid you finally bought a clue," Charlie giggled.   
  
"Your Aunt Jubes could benefit from a well-placed application of duct tape," Logan sighed.   
  
Seven years earlier ~  
  
Bobby had taken Marie to one of the most elegant restaurants in the city, and when a man does that he's usually proposing one of two things - either to get married or break up. What would turn out to be in Logan's favor, it was the latter.  
  
Marie was eager to share the news that she'd had a breakthrough. It seemed that the trauma from the Dark Cerebro incident at Alkali Lake had enabled her to finally switch 'off' her mutation. Unfortunately for Bobby, he blurted out his 'we should see other people' speech before she'd had a chance to tell him. More than a tad miffed that his 'it doesn't matter if we can't touch, I love you anyway' declaration had turned out to be a lie, Marie got up, walked around the table and planted a kiss right on his lips. There was no 'pull'.   
  
"Ta da. Surprise!" A beat later she added, "Dumbass."  
  
Then she sashayed out of the restaurant, leaving him sitting there with a dumbfounded look on his face.   
  
After their little 'guy talk' in the kitchen the night the mansion had been invaded, Logan wasn't terribly surprised that Bobby had lost patience with not being able to touch Marie. He sure hadn't been about to give the kid any pointers in getting around her mutation. Secretly, he got more than a good laugh when he found out about his monumentally bad timing in breaking up with her.   
  
When news of her single status and 'touchableness' spread through the mansion's population of hormonally charged young men, Marie suddenly found herself at the top of their date wish lists. And Logan found himself a new career - protector of Marie's pureness. A well-timed menacing look or growl was usually sufficient to scare off most of her suitors, but sometimes it took a more pointed suggestion - as in, the pointed tip of a claw.   
  
When the eligible men would rather volunteer to go on a potentially suicidal mission than ask her out, Marie finally confronted Logan.   
  
"Since you've managed to scare everyone off, and don't bother denying it, you're stuck escorting me to the Professor's fundraiser," Marie informed him.  
  
Outwardly Logan appeared appropriately resigned, while inwardly he was positively delighted. That was until he realized he'd be required to wear a tux. Of course the upside would be escorting Marie, and he'd seen the Grecian goddess dress she intended to wear. He decided it was worth the trade off.   
  
As expected, the fundraiser was a huge success. Scott and Logan had been recruited to twirl well-heeled society matrons around the dance floor and both had been propositioned a few times.   
  
When the last of the guests had departed, Scott breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"If I had to hear one more wrinkled old prune ask me if I wanted to be left in a will...." he said as Jean led him out of the ballroom.   
  
Logan and Marie went out to the gazebo so that he could smoke a cigar. He'd unknotted the bow tie and undone the starched white shirt a few buttons so that Marie had a nice peek of chest hair.  
  
"Don't forget to empty out your pockets before you return the tux," Marie reminded him.  
  
"Right," he responded and reached for something in the inner pocket, "Here, hold this."  
  
Marie took the object without paying attention to what he was handing her. It took her a minute to realize it wasn't a cigar or a lighter. It was a small pale blue Tiffany's box and she raised questioning eyes to him.  
  
"You're right, people leave the darndest things in the pockets," Logan said with a smile.   
  
Marie undid the signature silver bow and opened the box to find a tag reminiscent of the one now lying at the bottom of Alkali Lake. She picked it up and read the engraving ~ Logan.  
  
"Oh, Logan, that's so sweet," Marie said, but there was a hint of disappointment in her voice.   
  
"Do you really like it? That's platinum, by the way, not silver."  
  
"It's wonderful," Marie stated as she hugged him.   
  
"I found something else while rummaging through the pockets," Logan informed her as he patted himself down.   
  
He pulled out a well-chewed cigar stub.  
  
"Guess you don't want that," he said playfully as he flicked it into bushes.  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Hmm," Logan said as he pulled out another item, "Dry-cleaning claim ticket ... from 1989! Christ, how old is this penguin suit?"   
  
"Keep searching, maybe you'll find something you could actually use," Marie said with a laugh.  
  
Just then Logan pulled out what looked like a diamond ring and Marie felt her heart skip a beat.   
  
"Let's just skip the dating routine, 'cause we both know how this story's gonna end. Will you marry me?" Logan asked as he dramatically got down on one knee, "I had this ring imported all the way from Zirconia."  
  
He handed it to her and upon closer inspection she discovered it was one of those trinkets from the 25-cent machines in the lobby of Wal-Mart.   
  
"Oh look, it's even adjustable," Marie noted as she slipped it on her finger, "So where are we gonna honeymoon - under a bridge in a cardboard box?"  
  
"Fine. Go ahead and ruin the surprise," Logan said with a smirk as he stood up.   
  
Marie looked down at the cheap trinket and noticed it was already starting to turn her finger green.   
  
"Okay, the joke's over. Now I gotta go inside and wash my finger with rust remover."  
  
Logan reached over, pulled the offending 'jewelry' off and tossed it into the bushes. He then slipped a replacement onto her finger and Marie saw that it was an emerald-cut diamond solitaire in a platinum setting.  
  
"You never answered. Will you marry me?"   
  
Tears welled up in Marie's eyes.   
  
"If you don't like the ring, blame Jubilee, she helped me pick it out."  
  
"The ring is perfect, Logan," Marie sniffed, "I would've settled for the gumball machine one."  
  
"Now you tell me."  
  
With watery eyes Marie smiled up at him.  
  
"I love you, Marie. I always have," Logan said softly, then with his hand over his heart melodramatically added, "You complete me."  
  
"And you had me at 'hello'," Marie replied, also with feigned drama.  
  
"Damn, we've gotta come up with better material for the actual wedding."  
  
Marie giggled.   
  
"But seriously," Logan said taking her hands in his, "You're everything to me, Marie, and I'm always gonna try to be the man you think I am."   
  
And then they melted into a long-overdue passionate kiss.   
  
Present day ~  
  
Logan ended the proposal story at the kiss because there was no need to tell Charlie how her parents had celebrated their engagement.   
  
"I hope you had an Altoids," Charlie stated.  
  
"Speaking of minty mouths, did you brush what's left of your teeth?" Logan asked.  
  
Charlie nodded affirmatively and gave him a cheesy, gap-toothed smile.   
  
"Good girl, now go to sleep," he said as he tucked the comforter around her, leaned down and kissed her cheek.   
  
He switched off the small lamp next to her bed and walked towards the door.   
  
"Love you, daddy," a small voice proclaimed.  
  
"Love you too, sweetpea." 


End file.
